It has not been an easy journey, but a concerted effort seems to have paid off. Over the years FMCG, paper, hospitality, IT and agri-business major ITC Limited has managed to increase the renewable energy component for meeting its total energy requirement to 43 per cent. These come from carbon neutral sources such as biomass, wind and solar. What's more, it is working towards achieving 50 per cent by 2020.

The progress, according to the company, was slow but sure, with decisive decisions being taken at every step to replace fossil-fuel based power with a renewables portfolio.

Of course, many issues came in the way and each was tackled for its merit. One of the most difficult was producing power at one geographical location and using it at another as in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Here, glitches of offsite projects and linkages had to be ironed out.

But where there is a will there is a way, says Sanjib Bezbaroa, Executive Vice President, Corporate EHS, ITC Ltd. He points out that in some units of ITC energy from renewable sources is as high as 91 per cent.

At the company's energy guzzling paper unit at Bhadrachalam, the renewable component clocks 49 per cent. At the Kovai paper unit it is at 33 per cent and at its printing and packing unit in the south 54 per cent. In the company’s hotel portfolio 53 per cent of energy needs are met by sustainable sources. 

“About three years ago we took organisation-wide ISO 14064 standard covering 50 manufacturing units, four subsidiaries and 25 outsourced manufacturing units as also transportation, supply chain and logistics facilities,” explains Bezbaroa and this is what set the ball rolling for ITC.

The diversified business conglomerate’s renewable energy portfolio comprises a number of sources.

These include black liquor waste from pulping process and waste wood biomass from chipping operations in the Bhadrachalam unit of ITC’s paperboards and specialty papers business; locally sourced chip/sawdust and deoiled bran as boiler fuel in the Kovai unit; and wind energy farms for ITC’s packaging and printing, and hotels, among others.

The company has also made massive investments of around ₹800 crore in wind energy and now has a total installed capacity of 132.25 MW.

“This has been a win-win for all our projects spanning hotels, manufacturing and processing units and the paper making unit, which is the biggest energy guzzler,” says the Vice President quick to point out the larger picture as well.

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